


Trouble Is My Business

by emungere



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon Incest, Canon Suicide, Crossdressing, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-25
Updated: 2005-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:50:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2672714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reincarnation fic, set in the US, circa 1945. Title shamelessly stolen from a Raymond Chandler novel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A series of drabbles for the noir challenge at 100_roadtrips.

Sampson stuck his head through Gabriel’s door, usual sour expression in place. 

“New client.”

“Well? Gonna show him in?”

Sampson’s eyes narrowed. “Her.”

Gabriel smirked. “What’s wrong? She prettier than you?” He just managed to duck the pen Sampson threw at his head. “You’ve got good aim for a secretary. Have I ever told you that?”

“Personal assistant,” Sampson snapped. He stomped back out into the waiting room. 

Gabriel leaned back in his chair. He flipped the pen between his fingers. First client in a month. She’d better be more than just a pretty face. Even one to rival Sampson’s. 

***

She’d been talking for the past five minutes, but all Gabriel could focus on was the way her skirt kept creeping up her leg. Knee bared, then thigh… He could see the seam of her stocking, black as the night sky against the shadowed curve of her calf. 

“Mr. Shane?”

He jerked his gaze up. 

Her lips were tinted a dark red, but that was all he could see. The veil attached to her hat obscured the rest of her face.

She removed the hat and shook out her dark hair. She… _He_ …smiled. “Perhaps we can proceed without distractions now?”

***

“If your sister’s been kidnapped, why not call the cops?”

The man shrugged and tucked a strand of dark hair back into place. “I only need to know where she is. I’ll pay well for the information.” 

_Pay well_. The magic words. Gabriel rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Your name?”

“Gene.”

“And the reason you look more like Gene Tierney than Gene Kelly?”

“I received the ransom note in New York. I would prefer her abductors believe I am still there.” He leaned forward, skirt riding up to reveal the lace top of one stocking. “Will you help me?”

***

Sampson loaded his revolver and waited for the door to open. He already knew they were taking this case. He knew it would be trouble. The only question he had left was how much padding that guy had used to get the skirt and blouse to fit right. 

The door opened. The man glanced at him through his black mesh veil. 

“Father Sampson. It’s good to see you again.”

“Just Sampson now.”

“Yes, it was in the papers.” He smiled pleasantly. “Tell me, was catching a killer worth excommunication and damnation?”

Sampson dropped the last bullet into the cylinder. “Yes.”

***

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been--“

“One week. Yes.” Sampson’s nails dug into his palm. This was the third week. He knew what was coming. 

“You remember me,” the voice said. The bastard sounded delighted. “I’m so glad, Father. I’d hate to feel I was boring you.”

“I can’t absolve you if you don’t regret your sins.”

“Oh, but I do. I always regret them, Father. No one should hurt a child. So sweet… So defenseless…”

The police didn’t seem much happier than the Church when he broke the sacramental seal. Sampson felt only relief. 

***

Gabriel showed Gene out with a guiding hand at the small of his back and watched him walk down the hall.

Sampson held up a cigarette. “Stop mooning. I need a light.”

“Excuse me, who’s the boss here?” Gabriel flicked his Zippo open anyway, watching the flame waver with Sampson’s indrawn breath. 

“Your new girlfriend’s got a dick.”

Gabriel sighed. “Yeah. I know.” 

He didn’t duck fast enough this time. Sampson’s pen caught him across the temple.

“Ow!”

“I didn’t sign up to work for an idiot.”

“Door’s right over there.” 

Sampson just grunted. “Where do you want to start?”

***

Gene kicked off his heels and slid out of his skirt. He lay on the bed, watching the skittering shadows cast as the fan moved the curtains. 

He'd received no ransom note. He was almost sure he knew who was responsible. But he needed help, and Mr. Shane might not help if he knew. Few people would. He told himself he didn't feel guilty. Lying to a stranger didn't even make the top 100 on his list of things to worry about. 

If his dreams that night suggested otherwise, they were only dreams. He was used to ignoring his dreams. 

***

Kitty stared at one immobilized hand. The nurse had taken so much blood from her, she fancied it was the same starched white as the sheets on her hospital bed. 

She had expected drugs, not restraints. He'd always liked drugs. 

Her foster father walked in, smiling the smile she'd hated since childhood. 

"How's my little girl?"

Her fingers curled, claw-like, into the sheets. Her voice would not obey her. 

The silence stretched. "Gene will find me," she said, finally. 

"I doubt that." He stepped aside. "The doctor has news for you."

The doctor's smile looked forced. "Congratulations, ma'am. You're pregnant."

***

Everyday, Gil gets up and gets dressed. He wears pants that are too short for him and a shirt with sleeves that touch his fingertips. The nurses say they're sorry, that's all they have. Gil doesn't mind. 

Everyday, he walks up and down the grey hall because they tell him he needs exercise. He takes blue pills because they keep him from getting sick again. He doesn't remember being sick, but it must have been bad. 

He knows only the hospital. But sometimes, in his dreams, he remembers the gold of sun on leaves, the dance of light on water. 

***

Gabriel pulled up in front of the psychiatric hospital. "Are you coming?" 

"To see the Wicked Witch of the West? No, thanks. Don't know why you bother."

"She's my mother."

"She's not, actually. And we're in the middle of a goddamn case."

"It'll only take a minute."

Inside, Gabriel walked up the long, grey hall, each step progressively slower. She wouldn't be happy to see him. It might be kinder to stop visiting. 

The door to her room stood open. She was sitting up, smiling at him. 

"Jason? Is that my good boy?"

Gabriel sighed. "No, ma. It's just me."

***

Gabriel saw her on his way out of the hospital. A young woman with Gene's dark hair and pale skin, bound to the bed with five-point restraints. He stared through the window in her door for only a second. 

Back in the car, he pulled out the photo Gene had given him. 

"Sampson?"

"What?"

"I think we just got lucky."

Sampson glanced at him. "Us?"

"There's a first time for everything."

He pulled over at the first pay phone. A tired voice answered.

"Gene? It's me. Uh. Gabriel Shane. We found her." 

Gene's faint breath of relief made him smile. 

***

Gene smiled. It must be fate to be so easy. He loaded his revolver, loving the small chink of metal against metal. The rest of the bullets he dropped into his pocket, letting them rattle as he walked. Two knives, one in a sheath at his waist, the other stuck in his boot. 

He folded the skirt and blouse carefully and packed them in a bag. Kitty would need something to wear on the way home. 

Tie straightened, sunglasses on, he went down to wait. He wondered how Mr. Shane would like him in normal clothes. 

Not that it mattered. 

***

Gene steadied himself against the wall. The tile floor was slippery with blood. There were more bodyguards than he'd expected. Some of them wore white. Odd. Kitty's foster father preferred his men to wear suits. The white made the blood stand out all the more. 

One of these white, blood-spattered things was Mr. Shane's face. Gene stopped the arc of his knife just in time. 

"Go," he said. "Take care of my sister." 

Gene watched him go. Watched him _run_ , like the Devil was at his heels. Strange, Gene thought. No need for such urgency. He had everything under control. 

***

She looked terrified, even after Gabriel removed the restraints. Her eyes flicked around the room as if searching for enemies. It reminded him of Gene, looking for his next target. 

"It's okay," he said softly, sitting next to her. "Your brother sent me. He's..." Down the hall, killing orderlies. "He'll be here soon." 

She clutched his jacket. "Tell him I'm sorry. I can't... It's Father's baby, I know it."

Her hand touched his cheek, and then the butt of his gun. He was too slow. The sound of the hammer cocking back seemed far louder than the shot that followed.

***

Sampson ducked into the nearest open room when Gene pulled out the gun. That guy had always been trouble, him and his sister both. Unstable was a nice way to put it. Fucking nuts would be more accurate. 

Gabriel could take care of himself. Probably. 

"Hello."

Sampson spun around, gun drawn.

The guy sitting on the bed smiled at him. Just a kid, maybe early twenties. Hair that needed a trim, legs growing right out of his pants. Eyes...the color of gold. 

He lowered his weapon. "...Hi."

"How come you've got a gun?"

"To shoot people who ask stupid questions." 

***

Gene shoved Gabriel against the wall. Only Gabriel's quickly raised arm stopped the knife aimed at his throat. He couldn't stop his cry as it cut into him. 

The sound seemed to jar Gene. Some sanity returned to his eyes. 

"I sent you to take care of her," he whispered. 

"She was too fast...my gun... I'm sorry. She said it...it was her father's baby, and she..." He faltered. 

Gene turned towards her, and Gabriel slapped a hand over the wound to stop the rush of blood when the knife pulled free. 

Gene's hand hovered over her stomach. "Not his. Mine."

***

"What's your name, kid?"

He frowned. "I'm not a kid."

Sampson rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you are. What's your name?"

"Gil."

"What are you doing here, Gil?"

"...Waiting."

"For what?"

"Can't remember."

Sampson could hear police sirens in the distance. The gunshots in the hall had stopped. So had the screaming. They'd have to go soon. Gabriel never liked getting mixed up with the cops. 

"Look, kid...I have to go." He glanced at Gil, at those weird eyes watching every move he made. He couldn't have said what made him ask.

"Do you want to come?"

Gil's smile was blinding. 

***

Sirens. There was no way the cops would believe this story.

"Gene...we have to go."

Gene picked up her body, bloody head cradled against his shoulder. "I'm ready."

Gabriel nodded towards the door, not quite ready to have Gene at his back.

As Gene reached the door, a man stepped into view; grey hair, steel eyes, twisted mouth. He pulled Gene close. Again, Gabriel saw the danger too late. 

He shot the man between the eyes. Gene fell backwards into his arms, his sister's body tumbling to the floor. Gabriel held him tight, hands covered in a wash of blood.

***

Gene's skin was a bloodless white by the time Gabriel got him to the car. Sampson was waiting, fingers drumming the wheel. There was a stranger in the back seat. 

Sampson gave him an incredulous look as he heaved himself and Gene into the passenger's side. 

"You're not seriously bringing him." It clearly wasn't a question. 

Gabriel jerked a thumb at the stranger. "You're not seriously bringing _him_."

"He's bleeding all over the seats."

"You got _him_ out of a mental institution."

"Yours _belongs_ in a mental institution."

"Just drive the fucking car, Sampson."

"...Fine. Where?"

"We need a doctor."

***

The operating table was an old door set over two sawhorses. The doctor wore bunny slippers and two day's worth of stubble. 

Gabriel held Gene against his chest. "Are you sure about this guy?"

"He's fine as long as he's sober," Sampson said.

"That's not reassuring."

He laid Gene on the table anyway. Not much choice. 

Gene grabbed his hand, the first voluntary movement he'd made since they left the hospital. His words were quiet, but clear. "She was Catholic. Give her a proper burial. Consecrated ground."

"What about you?"

Gene smiled. "Doesn't matter. I already know where I'm going."

***

Gil couldn't stop staring. At the sunlight that barely made it through the greasy windows, at the hundreds of bottles that lined the shelves. At Sampson. His hair was a brighter gold than the sun, but it was more than that. He shone.

"What are you staring at, kid?"

"I'm not a kid!"

"Shut up."

Gil looked at the pill bottles again. One of them must have his medicine in it. He didn't want it. It made him sleepy. But it must've been important. He told Sampson about it

"Medicine for what?"

"Don't know."

"Then you probably don't need it."

***

Gene woke in pain, but not such pain as he had expected. The tortures of the damned were not all they were cracked up to be. 

Mr. Shane was sitting next to the bed, sucking on an unlit cigarette. 

"Well," Gene said. "This is a bit of an anti-climax."

"You'd rather be dead, I guess."

"No." He could see to Kitty's body himself now. 

He tried to sit up. A hand on his chest pressed him back down. 

"Rest. That guy cut you up pretty good."

He watched Mr. Shane light his cigarette. The dying sunlight stained his hands red.

***

"Don't go home," Gene had told him. "They'll be waiting."

They were. When Gabriel went to get fresh clothes, there were two men in dark suits outside his building. Definitely not cops, not even FBI. He kept driving. 

Back at the motel, he found Gene in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. 

"Who are they?"

"Her father's people. You should get out of town. It's me they want."

"Come with me."

Gene looked startled. Something unreadable flickered across his reflected face and disappeared. 

"No, I can't. Not yet."

Gabriel sighed. "She'll be at the morgue. I'll drive."

***

When they tried to make Gene leave without his sister's body, Sampson guessed there would be blood. He was only wrong about the cause. 

The security guard's first mistake was shoving Sampson. 

Gil was between them in a second. "Stop it! Don't touch him!"

His second mistake was taking a swing at Gil. 

Gil was tall for a kid, taller even than Gabriel. Thin, but strong. Once he got the scalpel, there was no stopping him. 

He put three bodies on the ground in under a minute. Then he turned towards Gabriel, and there was no recognition in his eyes.

***

Gil _remembered_. A thousand years pressed in on him, condensed into a heartbeat. Too many deaths, none of them his own. Other lives were so brief. Five minutes more, or fifty years; what was the difference? They were things made to die. 

Cold metal against his forehead. Sampson's voice, reminding him that, for now, he wasn't alone. 

"Drop it, or I'll drop you."

He looked at his bloodstained hands and dropped the scalpel, memory already fading. "Is...is this what the pills were for? Am I..."

Sampson sighed. "You're no crazier than the rest of us. Let's get out of here."

***

Gabriel tossed the shovels over the wall into the graveyard and scrambled up. He leaned down to give Sampson a hand. 

"This is the craziest thing we've ever done," Sampson muttered.

"Really? Crazier than the time we... Never mind. You're right."

"I know I'm right."

"I just _said_ you were."

"What are we doing with them? What are you doing with him?"

"What are you doing with _him_?"

They looked at each other in silence. 

"We'll have to leave town," Sampson said.

Gabriel nodded. "I was thinking we could go west."

They jumped down and went to open the gate.

***

Gene watched them lay Kitty's body into the hole the three of them had dug. He'd done nothing but watch tonight. It hurt to stand, to sit, to breathe. Digging was impossible. 

With Mr. Shane's help, he stood now and tossed down a handful of dirt. It scattered across her pale face, and he had to turn away.

"Hey, _Father_ ," he heard Mr. Shane mutter. "How about a few words?"

Sampson grunted, but his voice was clear when he spoke.

"...earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust..."

Mr. Shane's arm was warm around Gene's shoulders. 

The sun rose.


	2. Poodle Springs

They made it safely out of town just after dusk. Gabriel and Gene sat in the front seat, Gene dressed to the nines, silk stockings, veil on his hat. With Sampson hidden on the floor in the back and Gil in the trunk, they must have looked for all the world like a couple out for a Sunday drive. 

Later, Gabriel watched as Gene peeled those stockings from his long legs. Washed them, hung them carefully up to dry, wearing only Gabriel's borrowed shirt and a pair of lacy, black underwear. Gabriel wondered if they had belonged to his sister.

***

They stayed in Blue Springs, Missouri for three of the longest days of Gabriel's life. Gene didn't leave the hotel room. He stayed in bed, wearing Gabriel's shirt and those damn panties, staring up at the shifting shadows on the ceiling. His hand spread across his lower stomach, flexing against his skin.

"You should eat," Gabriel told him on day two.

"Yes," Gene said. "Indeed." But he ignored the chicken soup, the ginger ale, the crackers.

"I'm not watching you die."

"Then look away."

"Fuck you."

Gabriel upended the bowl of chicken soup all over the bed. Gene never moved.

***

"Sit on him and pour it down his throat," was Sampson's advice. "He's weak. You can take him."

"You're hilarious. Also, I hate you."

"Let him die if that's what he wants."

"You gonna give him last rites, father?"

Sampson leaned across the greasy diner table to blow smoke at him. "You can't save him."

"We can only save ourselves, right?"

"Right."

"Then you should've left me in that alley, dickhead."

"Wish I had."

Gabriel snorted and snatched Sampson's cigarette out of his hand. "I believe you."

Sampson stood. "If you want him to live, then give him a reason."

***

Gabriel sat down hard on Gene's bed, seeing his wince as the movement jostled his wound.

"I think a priest just suggested I commit sodomy with you."

"Ex-priest."

"Whatever. Up for it? You did your sister after all."

He'd thought that would get some reaction--probably violence--but no.

"Why won't you leave me in peace?" Gene asked, finally.

"Glutton for punishment, I guess."

Cicadas buzzed outside the window.

"There's something wrong with me," Gene said.

"Not news."

Gene still wore Gabriel's shirt. His hand smoothed down over grubby cotton until it rested over his own heart.

"Tomato soup. If you please."


	3. Goldfish

The concrete around the pool was cracked and stained. Straggling weeds poked up here and there, mostly browned from too much sun and too little rain.

Sampson's deck chair had a strap missing under his ass, and he kept sinking further than he'd like towards the ground. 

The light was almost too bright to read by, glaring off the newspaper and making the letters dance behind his eyes when he closed them. He set his paper down with a sigh and picked up the half full glass beside him. In theory, it was a martini, but he'd run out of vermouth, and this town was dry on Sunday.

He held the glass up and turned it so the sunlight fractured against the glass. The light had changed as they got farther west. Brighter, warmer, somehow more of it, pouring down from a bigger sky.

Gil loved it, which was the only reason Sampson was out here instead of inside, in the cool dark of his room. Nothing had happened since that incident at the hospital, but he didn't feel right leaving Gil alone. Not with the children here, and their mothers lounging around the pool, dozing and unwary.

You'd never think to look at him that the kid could hurt a fly, but Sampson had gone back to the hospital before they left town and found his records. Gil had a bunch of medals waiting for him in some government office, but the things that got you decorated in war time were the same things that got you drugged up and locked away once they sent you home.

Maybe it was just as well Gil didn't seem to remember any of it.

Now, he splashed in the water with kids half his age, smiling fit to split his head right open. His skin was golden from the sun, hair bleaching out and curling at the back of his neck. He was bulking up, too. Sampson didn't know when he'd gone from rangy and half-starved to being built like _that_ , but he was getting attention from some of the more awake mothers.

Sampson looked away as Gil surfaced, but not fast enough. Gil caught his eye, grinned, and waved. The movement of his hand sent a shower of sparkling drops over to spatter Sampson's newspaper and drink. He glared, but it made no apparent impression. It never did.

He was about to suggest that it was time they went inside, when Gil's head turned at the sound of a shout.

A boy of four or five was running towards the edge of the pool. "Look, mom! I got the fish so he can swim too!"

The boy's mother sat up, reaching for him. "No, wait--" But she was too late.

Sampson watched the boy tip a plastic bag filled with water and one soon-to-be deceased goldfish into the pool. He turned back to Gil--but Gil wasn't there any more.

He was cutting through the water with quick strokes toward the boy and scooping the fish out of the water.

Sampson blinked. It lay twitching in Gil's cupped hands, still clearly alive, if just barely. The kid was fast.

Gil launched himself out of the pool, covered the ground with a loping stride--and dumped the fish into into Sampson's drink.

Sampson closed his eyes briefly and sighed. Dead fish _and_ a perfectly good drink ruined. Wonderful.

"That's not water, you idiot. That's gin."

Gil's eyes widened, and he squeezed his hand into the narrow glass, pulling out the now-limp body of the fish. He looked at Sampson, pressing the small, cold form into his hands.

"Can't you do something?" he asked.

"Like what?" Sampson snapped. "Goldfish CPR?"

Sampson curled his hand closed around the fish, glints of gold showing between his fingers. He looked up and met Gil's eyes, almost the same color.

"Please?" Gil said softly. "I didn't mean to kill it. I...didn't want to kill anything else."

Then again, maybe he did remember some of it.

Sampson tightened his jaw and squeezed his hand tighter. It was unreasonable anger, and he knew it. He didn't care. _Just do something. Just fix it. Because it's so easy, right? They always think it's so fucking easy._

But this time it was impossible, and that was almost a relief. Almost.

"I can't--" He stopped, feeling a flash of warmth in his palm, a feeble movement.

The little boy caught up with Gil and tugged his swim trunks. "Is it okay? Did you save it?"

"I'm sorry," his mother said, sighing. "He just got it today. He was so excited. We brought some water, if..."

She held out a glass.

Sampson opened his hand and let the fish drop into the water with a splash. It flipped its tail and swam in small circles, gills flaring.

"Oh," the boy's mother said. A smile broke over her face, and she shook Sampson's wet, fishy hand. "I thought for sure it was dead. Thank you!" She turned to her son. "Say thank you, Jimmy."

Jimmy beamed and hugged Sampson before he could move.

When they were gone, Gil sat on the edge of the deck chair, the wet fabric of his swim trunks sticking to Sampson's thigh.

"Thank you--"

"Don't," Sampson said. "I didn't do anything."

"But," Gil started, frowning. "It was--"

 _"I didn't do anything._ Got it?"

Gil just looked at him. "Yes, you did," he said. "I saw you."

Sampson blinked, looked down at his hands, back up at Gil. He ran through various responses in his head. _Things like that just don't happen._ Or, _Are you saying God just performed a miracle to bring a fucking goldfish back from the dead?_ Or, and he liked this one, _Shut the hell up._

He said nothing.

Gil took his hand, kissed the palm. His lips were cold and wet, his smile much too warm.

Sampson jerked his hand away.

"We should go get ready for dinner, right?" Gil said. "Gabe and Gene will be waiting."

"Right."

Sampson glanced back at the boy and his mother as he followed Gil inside. The boy was holding the glass up so it caught the sun. One stray sunbeam stung Sampson's eyes, and he turned away.


End file.
